The Management of Workplace Diversity

1. The Management of Workplace Diversity Steven M. Brown, Luke V. Vargo, Konstantin Kutschenko Webpage Project Update

2. Workplace diversity defined • Relates to the differences that people bring to a workplace • Two dimensions of diversity: • Primary (visible)/Secondary (invisible) • Every company has workplace diversity to some degree

3. Why We Chose Our Topic • Career relevance • Current trends in economy (globalization, organizational mergers) • Linkages to social psychology

4. Objective • The objective of our project is to create a webpage that informs about the increasing importance to manage a diverse workplace and to examine and evaluate strategies that are currently used in companies for the workplace management.

5. Equal Employment Opportunity • Title VII • Equal Pay Act • American Disability in Employment Act • Social Psychology provides us with explanations for the lacking effectiveness of these employment laws • Modern racism • Ambivalence • Color blindness

6. Advantages and Disadvantages • Depends on how well the diverse work place is managed. • Advantages: • Helps bring in more talented people • Saving of litigation costs • More perspective on customer needs and wants • Disadvantages: • More miscommunication, tension, and conflict in workplace. • Can deter talented people from working

7. Mission critical work vs outside of mission critical work • Outside of Mission critical work is defined as working on miscommunication disagreement amongst various things. • The more time has to be spend on outside of mission critical work the more money and time will be wasted. • Mission critical work: effective use of time and energy devoted to the job at hand.

8. Types of Prejudices • Sexism • Nationalism • Classism • Sexual Discrimination • Racism • Religious Discrimination • Linguistic Discrimination

9. Origins of Prejudice • Inherent Human Potential for Prejudice • Intergroup Dynamics • Individual Differences • Structural, Situational, Individual

10. Theories of Reducing Prejudices • Propaganda • Education • Self-Confrontation Technique • Create opportunities for contact between members of different groups. • Sensitivity Training

11. Approaches to managing diversity • In research by Thomas and Ely (1996), they present the practitioner/consultant which examines the positive outcomes associated with diversity. • Research performed by Dietz and Petersen (2006) categorized diversity approaches to the macro or organizational-level approach and the micro approach that is based on psychological models of discrimination and inter-group relations.

12. Approaches to Managing Diversity • Litvin (1997) claims that exposure to managerial diversity discourse encourages individuals to view thier co-workers in particular ways. Litivin also argues that socially constructed demographic categories are portrayed as obvious, natural, and immutable and thus preclude any consideration of mechanisms for change.

13. Webpage Components

14. What’s Next? • Further Social Theory Exploration • Gather Additional Research • Webpage Construction • Real World Examples

15. References